But thanks to Jacobs, I've also found an entire website, VulgarArmy, devoted to analysing and cataloguing the use of the octopus in propaganda and political cartooning. You can find Vulgar Army via this link.

How specialist can a website get!

P.S. Fiona Katauskas, cartoonist and producer of 'Talking Pictures' on the ABC's Insiders program, has a knowledge of Australian cartooning history and immediately spotted that Rowe's cartoon is a hat tip to the famous (or infamous) century old Bulletin 'Yellow Peril' cartoon reproduced below.

July 29, 2010

Too often people lament that Australian voters are not offered enough real choices at elections. The campaigns are too bland, the major parties are too much alike, who else can we vote for?

I don't agree with this view. If you look under the logs and leaf litter of the political garden, there are alternative visions out there. Maybe not in every electorate, but some contests attract a range of candidates of many political hues, from the political left to the political right, and sometimes from off the normal political spectrum altogether.